While there’s plenty of competition from new outlets like Cheddar and Business Insider, Forbes is still one of the most influential business media brands in the world.

As a result of their annual power lists, Forbes has an enormous brand cachet.

It is a symbol of success and wealth, but it's also so much more.

It's a community, helping business leaders across a wide variety of industries connect and grow. Not to mention, share their hard-earned business insights with a captive audience of business professionals.

One way in which Forbes has embraced community-building is through Forbes Councils which, for select leaders, offers a powerful platform for business success by offering members access to visibility, connections, and growth.

I recently spoke to Ryan Paugh, COO / Co-Founder of The Community Company and the coauthor of Superconnector.

https://youtu.be/OvwtSnZNJ44

In 2016, his company partnered with Forbes to launch Forbes Councils.

This is not a Forbes Council Review. I am not a member so I have no first hand experience. But it is an interview with one if it's founders, and its sheds light on the benefits of Forbes Council membership.

Community Matters, Now More Than Ever

In talking with Ryan, one of the common themes that came up was the importance of surrounding yourself with the right group of people if you want to be successful. We discussed Malcom Gladwell's Outliers and how the highest achievers maneuver a finite group of very exceptional people around them.

We also discussed how incredibly difficult this is to achieve in our modern-day social media era without some form of curation.

Superconnector, the book Ryan co-wrote with his business partner Scott Gerber, touches on many of the same principles.

They make a point to debunk the fallacy of "bigger is better" and actually dare readers to shrink the size of their inner circle. Scott even wrote a piece about this in the Harvard Business Review. 

That's one of the things that The Community Company focuses on with all of its projects, including Forbes Councils.

Everything is by invitation only and applications are vetted by several members of their internal selection committee. In most cases, you're also going to pick up the phone and talk to a member of their team.

Share Your Insights & Expertise

When Ryan and I spoke, we touched upon their company's thesis: why thought leadership is so important. When you publish and share valuable, non-promotional content on a regular basis, it builds credibility, which then creates more business opportunities.

When it comes to thought leadership on Forbes Councils, an editorial staff works with members to develop high quality content. Based on a comprehensive set of guidelines, member articles get published on Forbes.com as a Council Post. 

Because it is a paid program, you are not becoming a Forbes contributor.

Forbes Councils’ editorial staff reviews all submissions, not the Forbes editorial staff.

The frequency in which a member can publish depends on a few things. First is the quality of the writing and the creativity of the content. Is it well thought out? Is it succinct? Is it interesting and credible?

Second is their content approval process, which on average runs four to six weeks.